


My Mother's Eyes

by Lysandra_Marshmallow



Category: OwnUniverse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:09:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26267773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra_Marshmallow/pseuds/Lysandra_Marshmallow
Summary: People had always said that she had her Mother's eyes...(Horror short story - original)





	My Mother's Eyes

As I laid in bed that night -thoughts racing through my head in a frantic, scrambled mess- four little words seemed to repeat like an ominous chant. No matter where my traumatised mind wandered, it always came back to those four little words. If only I hadn't questioned my mother's strange disappearance. Or the even more odd words my father had said to her three weeks ago, the last time I saw her. If only I hadn't been so curious. If only I hadn't climbed up the attic stairs where I'd last seen my mother ascending. Hadn't stayed up in that attic -when every fibre, every atom in my being told me to flee- and searched through the strange and terrifying contents of the jars my father found so fascinating. If only I hadn't seen my mother's eyes, glassy and dull, staring straight back at me weeks after her disappearance.

I tried with all my might to shake the images from my memory but they were persistent and clingy. What I saw up in the attic that day stuck with me like a stray dog I'd fed once. But that was what I had done, in a way. Discovered a mystery of my mother's unsolved disappearance and took it upon myself to investigate. Fed the rabid dog that had no place in my life with my curiosity so it would never leave me. Not for the rest of my life, however long that would be. I tossed and turned, the nightmares in my head not bothering to wait until I fell into a land of unconsciousness. They were a part of me now. What I found in that attic today ruined my perception of my father completely. I don't know how I will be able to face him anymore. I am ridden with fear that I am convinced my father could smell from his bedroom across the hall. I'm afraid that I may have fed the dog too much. First with my curiosity and now with my guilty horror, until I too will be swallowed by it's ravenous, ever-hungry jaws. The mystery will engulf me too.

My ears perked up at the sound of the eerily creaking floorboards outside my shut bedroom door. I stared straight at it, eyes wide, begging it to have just been a mouse. But I knew those footsteps well. I've been hearing them since I was born. A sharp knock sliced through the tense silence like a knife through butter. Each time his knuckles rapped against the wood my heart thumped faster in my chest. It suddenly became very cold but fire was burning in my heart. An inferno fuelled by my fright. A dog fed with bloody, raw meat.

No matter how much I delayed I knew I could not escape my fate of the damning role I must play in this narrative. Not the valiant investigator that leaves people clamouring for a sequel, against my desperate hopes. But I would not go quietly, so when my father opened the squeaking door in the dead of night I did not act like everything was okay. I did not accept the villainous crimes he has committed. I remained set in the stone of my stubborn will to not go out unknowing like my mother did as my father dragged me, kicking and screaming toward the attic. Towards the room where my mother had taken her last living breath. A manic, twistedly adoring expression corrupted the features of the man's face I had once found comforting and loving. Only madness resided there now. I still did not give in. Especially when he uttered my death sentence.

"I've always loved your eyes. Now I've figured out a way I can keep them forever."

These were the same words I heard leave his lips the last time I witnessed him speaking with my mother. I knew that I'd fed the dog too much. That now I would also be swallowed whole by the mystery. Well, not whole. Not with my eyes. For mine -like my mother's- would be kept forever in a jar on my father's desk, floating in dirty liquid. I played the detective, trying to solve the very mystery I was now seconds away from falling victim to. Now I would always remain a mystery. My name. Age. Gender. No one would ever know who I was.

The last thing I heard before my death was my father's affectionate voice telling me how I had my mother's eyes.

I wish I hadn't.


End file.
